by Kady Cross
Unless she was in on it.
And that really was crazy. A genuine insane thought.
I turned off the car and stepped out, holding the door open between me and them like a shield. “What’s going on?”
Kevin had joined our group, too. He looked at me like I was something he’d just scraped off the bottom of his shoe. I didn’t even know the guy. What was his damage?
Roxi stepped forward, hands held out in front of her, imploringly. “Lark, no one meant to hurt you tonight. I’m sorry if you feel like you’ve been ambushed.”
I raised a brow. “You mean I haven’t been?”
“I told you to be straight with her,” Ben growled. He was all frowny and serious, not quite so pretty, but even more hot. He turned to me. “We asked you here to talk to you.”
I glanced at Roxi. “Not to be my friend, then.” Shouldn’t have said that. Made me sound whiny and pathetic.
She looked like I’d slapped her. “I meant what I said.”
I wanted to believe that, I really did.
“This is stupid,” the darker guy—Gage—said. I remembered him from elementary school. His last name was Moreno. “You guys watch too much TV. She can’t help us, because there’s nothing going on.”
Help them? With what?
I turned my attention back to Ben, but my gaze caught on Sarah instead. “You should get that scratch looked at,” I told her. “It looks infected.”
It was as though I was a hunter with a semiautomatic and they were a herd of deer. They all froze, staring at me.
Sarah’s hand went to her face. “Really?”
“Yeah. You should at least put a bandage on it. Some Neosporin.”
Gage stepped forward, rolling up his sleeves. “What about me? Do I have scratches, too?”
Long, jagged furrows ran the inside length of each of his forearms. They rose up in thick, scarlet welts that oozed wetly under the streetlights.
I made a face. “What the hell have you been into?” I asked them, but I shouldn’t have asked. Hell, I shouldn’t have let them know I could even see them. I knew my mistake as soon as the light hit his arms in the right way, allowing me to see that tar-like tinge that clung to the wounds.
“Oh, hell,” I whispered. “You pissed off a ghost.”
No one else could see their scratches. Even they couldn’t see them, but I bet they could feel them. Some ghosts were nasty that way.
“Oh, Lark,” Wren whispered. “This is bad.”
“Did it get all of you?” I asked.
“Not me,” Kevin said, but the rest nodded.
I glanced at each of them. I didn’t want to get involved in this. But...shit. I couldn’t just walk away. They had no idea what they’d gotten into.
Roxi shot a fierce look at Sarah. “I told you Ben was right. I told you something happened that night.”
Sarah’s jaw was slack, her eyes wide. Her fingers were still pressed to the wound on her face. “It’s not possible,” she whispered. “Ghosts aren’t real.”
“There’s one here right now,” Kevin informed her hotly. Huh. Mr. Sixth Sense all ready to snap to my sister’s defense. I liked him at that moment. A little.
Gage shook his head. “This is so fucked up.”
I turned to Ben. “How did you know?”
He shrugged. “I felt it.”
“You believe in this stuff?” Mace demanded. He looked from Kevin to Ben like he felt betrayed by them. “That’s just great.”
“And you don’t?” I asked. “Come on, Mace. You’re smarter than that.”
He glared at me. He blamed me, I think. He’d been living in perfect ignorance before being dragged into my world.
Gage stood there, rubbing at his forearms. He looked scared and confused. “Ghosts are real?”
For a second, there was silence. Then, I said, “Yes.” There went that promise I’d made to keep myself out of trouble. To keep my head down and not attract attention.
“We have to help them,” Wren insisted.
I glanced at her. “Can’t help them if they don’t want it,” I replied.
Gage was watching me. “Who are you talking to?”
I sighed. “My sister. She’s dead.”
He paled a little. “Oh, shit. The stories about you are true?”
Roxi patted him on the arm. “It’s okay.”
Mace and Sarah exchanged glances, then looked at Gage, Roxi, Ben and Kevin. None of them wanted this to be true. In fact, I expected them to protest a little harder, but they weren’t stupid. They knew something was off.
“Can you help us get rid of it?” Roxi asked, her hand over her stomach.
“Yeah,” added Gage. “What do we do?”
Okay, so they were ready to admit that something was wrong. That meant that they were open to believing in ghosts, and that for the first time in my life I was with people who just might believe me.
I didn’t know everything about ghosts, but I knew more than they did. I knew more than most people did. And Wren knew way more than me. Still, she and I just sort of figured things out as we went along. We weren’t exactly experts.
“We’re all they’ve got,” my sister whispered. Kevin’s gaze jerked in her direction. Just how sensitive was he to her presence?
“Where did you find it?” I asked. Cool fingers curled around mine and squeezed. My sister, giving her approval. I had an awful feeling that this was going to bite me on the ass.
“Fairfield Cemetery,” Sarah replied.
I shook my head. And closed the Beetle’s door. I wasn’t going anywhere just then.
“Lark, that’s not right,” Wren insisted. “Do you hear me? I said it’s not—”
I shot her a glare. “I know.” Did she think I’d forgotten about Kevin and his little song during this drama?
“Are you talking to your sister again?” Sarah asked hesitantly.
I tried to smile. It didn’t work. “Yes.”
“Her name’s Wren,” Kevin said, stepping into the circle. He shot me a glance. I gave him the finger. He’d flapped his lips about my sister enough already.
“Ghosts don’t haunt cemeteries,” I informed them. “Cemeteries are sanctuaries. There’s nothing there but bones and peace. Ghosts need something to hold on to—a person, place or thing. When ghosts need to feed they go back to a place they knew in life where they might find the living. Your ghost is from somewhere else. Where else have you been that’s close to there?”
They all looked around, shaking their heads.
“At least one of you has been somewhere else. Maybe you walked across property near the graveyard? Trespassed somewhere?”
That shared glance was all the answer I needed. “Where?” I demanded.
“Haven Crest,” Gage said, voice hoarse and face white. “The old...hospital. We cut across the grounds one night.”
I made a face at his choice of term, which I knew had been for my benefit. Haven Crest had been an asylum in the most horror-movie sense of the word. Every kid in town knew about it by the time he or she was ten. Some even dared to brave its rusted gates. I knew better. I saw what was there. Those memories kicked my heart into overdrive and brought back other memories, of pills being forced down my throat as the ghosts of Bell Hill looked on, some of them eager for a chance to “play” when my senses were dulled and I couldn’t fight back.
“You’re on your own,” I told them and pivoted on my heel. “Good luck.”
“Wait!” Roxi cried. “You’re not going to help us?”
“I can’t,” I told her. “I’m sorry.” And I really was.
“Lark, we have to help them,” Wren insisted, but I turned away.
Someone grabbed my arm, but it wasn’t Wren. It was Mace, and he looked
angry. And afraid. Of all the people to grab me, to make me look them in the eye, why did it have to be the one who had saved my sorry life? Yes, they’d locked me up after he did it, but I was here because of him. I owed him.
“You can’t tell us we need your help and then walk away,” he said.
I shook my head as though he’d been the one to remind me of that fact. “I won’t do it. You can’t make me go there. Do you know what that place is? Do you know what it’s like to be surrounded by ghosts that don’t have any sense of right and wrong? To be strapped to a bed and unable to fight when creatures who get off on pain come to play?” Tears filled my eyes and I refused to be ashamed of them. “You don’t know, and I can’t do that again.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I just know this.” And then he shoved my hand under his shirt, flat against the smooth, muscled wall of his chest. I gasped at the heat there—the burning ridges that scorched my palm. He had the scratches, too.
Heat raced up my arm. No, it was like my arm was on fire. I cried out. Wren reached for me... My head snapped back—eyes, too.
Pain. Blood. Suffering. Terrible images filled my brain, each moving too fast to be sure of what I was seeing. I heard screams and laughter, tasted blood and tears. And I burned.
Then I saw them—Mace, Roxi, Gage, Sarah, Ben and Kevin—all of them. They were dead—ripped apart by something with huge claws. Their blood covered the floor of what looked like an old medical ward. Rats scurried along the edge of the growing crimson pool.
Mace’s face—what was left of it—turned toward me. Something had ripped out his eyes, but I knew he could see me. “You,” he rasped.
And there was Wren, clacking like a vulture, squatting among all the gore. Black clots of blood matted her hair, stained the skin around her mouth. I watched in horror as she lifted unnaturally long, bloody hands. Each finger had become a wicked razor-sharp claw, and from those claws dangled a cluster of eyeballs—like an upside down bunch of small, macabre balloons. I saw Roxi’s eyes and Mace’s eyes, and Sarah’s. They all turned to stare at me accusingly.
My sister grinned at me before popping one of them into her mouth.
I screamed.
WREN
Lark slumped against Mason at exactly the same moment a police officer got out of his car on the other side of the parking lot.
“Crap,” Ben muttered. “Is that Olgilvie?”
Someone else swore.
I barely glanced at the tall, heavyset man in uniform walking toward us. I was more concerned about my sister. What had happened when she’d touched Mason’s wounds? “Lark?”
Mason held her up. He couldn’t see me, however. To his friends he said, “Stay calm. Let me do the talking.”
Sarah looked panicked. “How are we going to explain her?” She gestured at Lark. “She looks drunk.”
It was obvious that everyone thought we were in trouble, so I did the only thing I could think of. I stepped into my sister and took over her body for the time being. People called it possession, but I didn’t like to use that term in regards to Lark. Thankfully, she was just asleep. I opened my eyes—Lark’s eyes.
Mason looked down at me. He frowned. “You’re not her,” he whispered.
I managed a small smile, impressed that he could tell the difference between us—most people couldn’t. “You can let her...me, go now. Thanks.”
He dropped his arms like I was on fire. I stumbled, but managed to catch myself. Wearing Lark was fairly comfortable, but I wasn’t used to having substance in this realm. Limbs were heavy, clumsy. I braced my hand against the roof of Nan’s car.
By that time the police officer—Olgilvie—had reached us. “Evening, kids. Had a report of a girl accosting another with a cup of hot tea. Then I heard a scream. Everything all right up here?”
“Yeah,” Mason replied. “Just messing around.”
Olgilvie ignored him and came straight toward me. Did I know him? He looked familiar. Had he been there the night Lark had hurt herself?
He peered at me with narrow dark eyes. “You’re that Noble girl, aren’t you? Charlotte’s granddaughter.”
I nodded. God, even Lark’s head was heavy. How did the living walk around like this all day?
His shoulders straightened, like a rooster trying to make itself taller. He tucked his thumbs into his belt. “Are we going to have trouble again, Miss Noble?”
Again. I wanted to explain to him that we had never had any trouble, but that we certainly could if he wanted. I wanted to make the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end. I wanted to make his bladder quiver. A girl screams and he shows up talking like she’d done something wrong? Shouldn’t he be asking if she—I—was all right?
A skinny young man with a lot of hair and jeans that were too tight stood beside the officer. It was obvious he was one of my kind—not just because he looked out of place, but because he looked right at me and winked.
“No,” I said, looking away from the ghost. “We’re not going to have trouble.”
The policeman nodded, rocked back on his heels. “That’s good, because I have friends at Bell Hill. If I think for a minute that you’re a danger to anyone in this town I won’t hesitate to give them a call.”
Lark would say something snarky—my sister got defiant when threatened—but I couldn’t think of anything. I was too angry. How dare he bring up that awful place. Lark hadn’t done anything and this man talked about sending her back there? He looked at her as though he thought she was a criminal. Trouble. Just what did he think she was going to do? She’d hurt herself, not anyone else.
“She didn’t do anything,” Mason said, with a frown. “Why don’t you back off?”
The officer obviously didn’t like his tone. “You watch your tone, Mace.”
“No.” The boy who had rescued my sister, and earned my eternal gratitude, folded his arms over his chest. “There’s nothing going on here, so maybe you should go find some real trouble, because I won’t hesitate to call my father—you know, your boss—and let him know that one of his officers is bullying a teenage girl for no reason.”
The older man stared at Mason, who stared back. Oh, I wished Lark could have seen it! If I liked Mason Ryan before, I adored him now for standing up for my sister.
“Someday, you’re not going to be able to hide behind your daddy the chief anymore.” Olgilvie pointed a thick finger at him. “I’m going to be there when that happens.”
Mason shrugged. “Then I guess you and I will have trouble. Someday.”
The officer stepped forward, jaw tight. That was when I put myself, or rather Lark, between the two of them. I probably shouldn’t have done anything, but it was the only way I could think of to end this situation before it became any more out of control.
And the only way to get the ghost to go away.
“You hid behind your father when he was chief, Opie.”
The color drained from Olgilvie’s face. “What did you call me?”
“That was what they called you, wasn’t it? The kids who liked to tease you?” Sometimes I knew things about the living, but in this case, the name had come from the ghost with him.
I smiled a little, moved closer to him, so only he could hear what I said next—the secret his companion shared. He staggered backward after I spoke to him, looking at me like I was something unnatural, which I was, of course. I was glad Lark wasn’t awake to see it, because too many people had given her that same look over the course of her life.
The officer turned and walked away. He looked unsteady. The younger man’s ghost walked beside him.
“What did you say to him?” Mason asked when it was just the group of us again.
“Something only he and a dead man knew,” I answered. And that was all I was going to say. Things taken to the grave were taken
there for a reason. By revealing it, and scaring the officer away, I’d basically indebted myself to the ghost haunting him. If the ghost ever needed a favor, I was obliged to reciprocate. No need to bring anyone else into that bargain.
I had bigger things to worry about. “Can someone help me? I need to wake up Lark.”
With the exception of Mason, they all looked at me in...well, it wasn’t quite horror. Surprise? That was when I finally let myself look at Kevin. My heart skipped a beat.
“Wren?” His voice was hoarse.
I nodded. His eyes were so blue, even in the dark parking lot. The breeze blew dark curls around his face. Such wild hair. It didn’t occur to me to speak. I just wanted to look at him. God, I could touch him if I wanted.
After that first connection when Lark had hurt herself, I didn’t expect to talk to Kevin again, but he reached out to me a day or two later. And when my sister had shut me out, he was the one person I could talk to about it. It took some time, and it wasn’t easy, but we got so that we could communicate fairly easily. He couldn’t see me, couldn’t touch me, but he could hear me.
“Oh, shit,” Gage said, staring at me. “That’s a ghost in there? Dude, that’s...fucked up.”
I blinked. There were other people with us. I hadn’t exactly forgotten them, they just hadn’t mattered all that much to me. Sometimes the living faded into the background, there were just so many of them.
“Where do you need to go?” Mace asked.
“Someplace private. Quiet. Not here,” I replied.
Kevin came forward. “My place. My parents are away for a long weekend.”
His house! Oh, no. Lark was going to kill me when she woke up. I didn’t care. I wanted to see his house. I wanted to touch the light switches he touched. Walk the floors he walked. I wanted to smell his toothbrush. Maybe try on his clothes. I didn’t care if it was weird—I spent 99.9 percent of my time incorporeal, damn it.
“I need someone to drive,” I said with a wince, gesturing to my grandmother’s hideous car. “I can’t.”
